


Mockery

by ProblematicPines



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Camping, Clones, Fluff, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Identity Issues, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s01e07 Double Dipper, Post-Episode: s02e20 Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls, Post-Weirdmageddon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 15:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17552189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProblematicPines/pseuds/ProblematicPines
Summary: Every trait that they possessed, from their interests in mysteries and anomalies to their distaste for skinny jeans and the like, even down to their physical attributes, weren’t truly their own. They were all Dipper’s, original Dipper’s, and they had no say in what they could find amusing or uninteresting because they were unable to feel anything outside of what they already did.Real people could grow, and gain new interests, new hobbies, new desires, start new days in different ways that made each passing hour a unique and memorable one.But Dipper’s clones couldn’t.They were just...them.





	Mockery

“Do you ever think about Dipper?” asked Dipper Three one late evening when the two of them were sitting underneath the tarp that acted as their home in the woods.

“Original Dipper, or someone else?” Dipper Four responded with a question of his own, slowly closing the Journal he was interrupted from reading (something that his twin had gotten very good at).

Dipper Three rolled his eyes, prodding the waning campfire with a long stick to try and get the dying embers to emit some amount of heat. “Original Dipper, of course,” he stated. “How many Dippers do we know? Aside from him and ourselves, of course,” he added after a moment’s thought.

He was right, however; how many people did they know, including one another and their creator (that they hadn’t seen in who-knew-how-long)?

The old cranky guy that had bestowed them with his banjo in exchange for some scrap metal they’d been using as a makeshift roof until they found the tarp (which they’d already stolen from him anyway, in some strange twist of irony) was the only person that came to mind. The only person that was actually a person, after all. Who was flesh and blood, not paper and ink.

“Yeah, I think about Dipper sometimes,” Dipper Four responded, sounding wary about where this conversation was headed, even though he had no reason to be. “A lot, actually. Probably every day. Hard not to, when you are his literal clone.”

Dipper Four knew that bringing this up to Dipper Four was a challenging ordeal, especially since he felt the exact same way about it. It was like they were discussing something unspoken, something that they shouldn’t, and if they had set rules on this kind of talk, then there would be almost nothing they could really talk about, since everything that made them “them” were also the exact same things that made their creator himself too.

Every trait that they possessed, from their interests in mysteries and anomalies to their distaste for skinny jeans and the like, even down to their physical attributes, weren’t truly their own. They were all Dipper’s, original Dipper’s, and they had no say in what they could find amusing or uninteresting because they were unable to feel anything outside of what they already did.

Real people could grow, and gain new interests, new hobbies, new desires, start new days in different ways that made each passing hour a unique and memorable one.

But Dipper’s clones couldn’t.

They were just... _them._

“Why did you bring it up?” Dipper Four inquired, halting Three’s train of thought. Three shrugged casually, still absently prodding at the campfire in an attempt to avoid meeting his twin(?)’s gaze. “I don’t know,” he responded, as though the shrug wasn’t an indication of his neutrality. “Just wanna make conversation, I suppose.”

“There are better ways to do that than to discuss Dipper, T,” Four insisted, idly flicking through the Journal. Upon hearing use of his nickname, Three looked back up to his friend, settling back on the mossy log they shared. He set down the stick in the grass, and tried investing in whatever pages Four was reading in the hefty Journal sitting in his lap. He had his own copy of it (as it had been in Dipper’s pocket at the time he had used the strange printing machine that gave them not-so-life), but he didn’t care much for it.

That was the one thing that separated him from Dipper, he supposed. He had read through that book so many times, from cover to cover, scouring just about every last line and mentally memorizing almost every creature documented within its yellowed pages, that he had grown tired of it.

No doubt Dipper would be as creepily obsessed with it now as he remembered him being all those months ago. As he remembered himself being obsessed with it, back when he was a clone of a twelve-year-old boy going by the name “Dipper Three” and not “Tyrone”. Back when he was a charade, a copy, an imitation of something that was truly living, instead of the mockery of what life should be.

Three hated Dipper.

He hated him for doing this to him. For bringing him into the world as a clone of somebody so young, so inexperienced, somebody so...dislikeable. He hated having no real desires, no real endeavors. He wanted to think back on fond memories, to bask in the tingling warmth that accompanied birthday parties and school trips to the science museum and other innocent, joyful things that he enjoyed as Dipper.

But whenever he did, they brought with him the soul-crushing reminder that he wasn’t truly Dipper. Dipper could make entirely new memories, live entirely new days, make entirely new friends. But all Three and Four had were distant memories of events that they could have sworn were as lucid and as tangible as the forest surrounding them, yet they knew that it had been Dipper living those experiences, not them.

They had to deal with the residue, the afterimages of happiness that they could never really feel again, or had never really felt at all.

They were mockeries of Dipper Pines, and neither of them could change that. They couldn’t make their own memories because they weren’t real people; they could only remember what Dipper could up until the point he lay down on that printing machine. And whatever Dipper felt afterwards, they could never feel those experiences. They never could have a true chance at living, because all they could do was live in the shadow of their creator, and chances were that even he had totally forgotten about their existences.

If he did remember them, then why hadn’t he come out searching for them? Truly he must have remembered that there were two children that looked, behaved and sounded exactly like he did running around in the forest of Gravity Falls.

And yet...they hadn’t seen him in what Four had stated was months, but to Three, had felt like years.

Three grumbled as he kicked away a pine cone, trying not to give his fellow clone any sign that he was feeling disgruntled about their situation. But the thing with clones was that they knew exactly how the other was feeling, as their emotional range were perfect mirrors of one another, as were their thought processes and everything along those lines.

So Four set down his journal (yet again) and turned to face the boy sitting beside him on the log. Fortunately the forest was quiet tonight; they could have a serious discussion without having to deal with any of the standard nighttime ambience that should serve as disturbances.

“I know what’s wrong,” Four said to his friend slowly, calmly, so as to not elicit an outburst that was oddly uncommon for somebody of Three’s temperament. “And I know that you’re feeling pretty bummed out right now.”

“Ya think?” Three snapped. His resentment of Dipper was building, and having somebody that looked exactly like him trying to coax emotional honesty out of him was the biggest kick in the gut Tracey could have imagined. He glared at Four.

“ _Don’t get angry at him, you’re angry at Dipper_ ,” Three tried telling himself, but that only went so far. He could tell himself all he liked that Four, Dipper and himself were all totally different people, but the fact of the matter was that Dipper was the only one who could actually live a life that was wholly malleable by his hands. Four and Three couldn’t.

Four’s round, dirt-spattered face was familiar yet estranged all at the same time; Three didn’t like it all that much, even if his own face looked exactly the same. It was like looking into a mirror, but without the flipped distortion; it was like looking through the eyes of another person entirely to see how he looked to them, but that was putting it lightly. Three wanted with all his heart to appear as different from Dipper and Four as possible, yet he couldn’t. He had to deal with the messy brown hair, the strange birthmark, the scrawny body and the constant sweating for the sake of living a lie.

It was deplorable, at best.

“What I mean to say is that you shouldn’t be so hung up on him, T,” Four tried telling him. “We have each other now. We don’t need anybody else so long as we have one another.”

“God, did you get that line out of one of Mabel’s romance novels?” Three harshly snapped, trying to sound not as annoyed as he felt.

Four’s cheeks grew redder, and he looked away.

“N-No!” he insisted, panicked. But Three knew that he was lying; he remembered Dipper skimming through one out of curiosity, and feeling very awkward afterwards.

Three remembered everything about Mabel. How could he have forgotten?

“I see what you’re saying, man,” Three said after a while. “It’s just that...we have to struggle to survive out here, yet Dipper can just go out and live his life. It’s not fair.”

Yeah, he sounded like a petulant child, but rightfully so. He had been condemned to a life that was a mockery of what it was supposed to be, and if somebody tried judging him for being mad about such a turn of events, then they could go eat sh-

“We could try and live our own, T. It can’t be that hard.”

“Yeah, we could. But we can’t, can we? People will suspect us of being...inhuman...sooner rather than later, won’t they?” Three glowered. “We don’t eat, we don’t sleep, we don’t grow...We look exactly the same as we did when we first got on Robbie’s bike and rode away!” He took note of the spatters of dirt on Four’s paler-than-paper face. “Pretty much, anyway.”

Four swiped at some of the muck with the tip of his index finger, smudging it across his cheek and leaving behind a streak that he didn’t particularly care for.

“So?” Four pushed. “We can join a travelling circus and become stars in a freakshow!” He swung one arm around Three and pulled him in close, pressing their cheeks close together. “I see it now! Three and Four: the ageless twins!”

Stars glimmered in Four’s big brown eyes.

“Yeah, we could become superstars! Whaddya think?”

Three, despite himself, smiled grimly at Four’s optimism. He reminded him of Mabel, even if he couldn’t really remember anybody else. Out of all things, out of all people, he could remember Mabel. There was no way he could forget about their twin sister. Much like how he couldn’t forget about Dipper. Mabel was just as important to them as their creator was, even if she had no idea they existed.

Dipper had made sure of that.

“Sorry, man, but I don’t much fancy being a sideshow attraction,” Three chuckled, pulling himself out of Four’s grasp. “And those names are the worst possible ones we could use as a genuine name. Especially when we wanna try and blend in and live lives of our own.”

“Why not?” his twin inquired, sounding faux hurt by his rejection. “It’s a life, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but...not a life that I want. Not a life that we want. That we deserve.”

“...What do we deserve, then?”

Three thought for a moment. Despite craving for a change of events, he hadn’t really given much thought as to what he and Four could be, if they weren’t the source for rumours floating around the town about mysterious doppelgangers running amok in the woods. What could they be instead? Normal people were definitely off the table; so what could they be instead? What could they do that would make their existences just that little more bearable?

“We deserve the same chance at life that Dipper has,” Three replied grimly. “I just want to be something else. Somebody else.”

“Then why don’t we try?”

Three looked at his friend, perplexed. He was confused by his friend’s oddly-chipper tone. Yes, he was alike to Mabel in many ways, but sounding so happy at such a time was something that wasn’t even all that common with her anyway.

“What do you mean?”

“Why don’t we try and be other people, then?” the other clone suggested, sounding hopeful. He grabbed hold of the Journal and started flipping through the pages, much to Three’s chagrin. “The first step is having a name!”

Three sighed.

“Four, I appreciate it and all, but...it isn’t that easy. We can’t just give ourselves names and poof-”

He popped his hands as emphasis on that part.

“-all our problems magically disappear. Not even Gravity Falls could do that.”

Four rolled his eyes and sighed exasperatedly.

“Well, duh - obviously,” he said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, which it was. “But it’s a start, isn’t it? When we-Dipper, was born, his parents gave him and Mabel names didn’t they?”

“Yeah-”

“So we could do that for ourselves!” Four exclaimed, not waiting for his fellow clone to finish. “We don’t have any parents around at the moment so each other will have to make do.” He finally stopped at one page, and grinned up at Three, who was looking on sceptically. “Go on! Pick a name! Any name!”

 

“Ty-” Three almost said, but stopped himself midway through. He remembered that another one of them, another clone, the first one actually, had been named Tyrone by Dipper. Unfortunately they hadn’t been given such a luxury, instead having to refer to themselves and one another by bland, sterile numbers, like they were replaceable and unworthy of any real effort given to them by their creator.

Whatever happened to the other clones?

Three had no idea. Hopefully they weren’t suffering the same mockery that they were.

“Ummm- how about…” Three continued to ponder. “Tyrone” was the name he’d been wanting to by all his life, but that was off the table. So was “Dipper” and “Mason”. Anything other than those two were fine by him.

“How about...Gary?” As soon as he said it, he regretted it; the look of pure disgust on Four’s face was something indescribable. The revulsion was palpable.

“Absolutely not,” Four discredited immediately. “I was thinking something more along the lines of...Trent?”

“Do I look like a redneck?” Three gasped, repulsed. He suddenly remembered the dishevelled state he was in. “Don’t answer that.” He pondered again for a few seconds. “What about Tracey?”

“Tracey?”

“Yeah. It’s trendy, it’s cool, and it’s gender-neu-”

“You sound like Grunkle Stan,” Four remarked distastefully. The question “Who’s that?” was on the tip of Three’s tongue, but he swallowed them back down, not wanting to cause tension between the two of them.

“Tracey it is,” he said instead. Upon actually saying the words, Three - no, Tracey - felt a little more independant. It wasn’t much, but it was something. He liked it. It...fit him. Besides, it was the closest thing to Tyrone he could manage without sounding too far out of left field.

Four hastily scrawled down the name in the Journal using a biro that had a seemingly-infinite amount of ink inside it.

“Not my first choice, but it’s your’s,” he said while he wrote. “If you like it, then that’s all that matters, dude.” Tracey felt a little higher in spirits now. How it taken them so long to get around to naming themselves something that defined them and one another as individuals, separate from their creator, was something beyond him.

“What about you?” Tracey inquired. “I can’t go by ‘Tracey’ and you still go by-”   
“QUATTRO!” Four hollered abruptly, jumping to his feet and making a punching motion with his fist. The sudden leap from the log made Tracey flinch back in sharp surprise, unsuspecting of his friend’s sudden lunge.

“Excuse me?” was all he could squeak out.

“Quattro!” Four repeated jovially. “It’s Italian for the number ‘Four’. I think it suits me pretty well.” “I thought the whole reason we were giving ourselves different names was to distance ourselves from the names Dipper gave us,” Tracey stated, a little confused by Quattro’s odd naming choice.

“And I have!” Quattro insisted, while simultaneously writing his name down below Tracey’s in the Journal. “It’s odd - it fits perfectly in here at Gravity Falls!”

Tracey chortled. “You sound like a cheesy tour guide,” he snickered. Quattro punched him playfully in the arm.

“Why are you writing our names down, anyway?”

Quattro suddenly looked pretty sullen. “Well, just in case we...forget them,” was all he said. Tracey knew what he meant, and immediately felt saddened by the answer. Yet another reason to hate Dipper: being unable to construct new memories besides the ones that he had given them, knowingly or unknowingly, even if those ones had already begun to fade.

Quattro abruptly stuck out one hand, a big grin plastered over his dirty, paler-than-paper face. His messy hair was sticking out underneath the frayed bill of his blue pine tree hat and the hood of his yellow raincoat, but between his curls, Tracey spied the tiny freckles that had coincidentally aligned themselves into the Big Dipper constellation, forever pocking his skin with the insignia of their creator.

“Hi, there!” he barked happily while shaking Tracey’s hand with an enthusiasm he didn’t possess a few moment’s ago. “My name’s Quattro! Nice to meet ya!” He fingergunned Tracey, a big smirk on his face.

Tracey quickly caught on, and smiled back. He clasped hold of Quattro’s hand in his own, marvelling at how perfectly their pale-white fingers interlocked, perfectly matching each other’s hold.

“Hi, Quattro. I’m Tracey. I hope we can go on to be the best of friends.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write something for Tracey and Quattro for a while now, especially since seeing them included in the ending credits for Weirdmaggedon was something I wasn't expecting but absolutely adore. They're just so precious and deserve way more than what they got in the show.
> 
> In this Fic, I tried going down a different route, and that was one focused more on the feelings that the clones feel for Dipper after he condemned them to an existence restricted to the woods. I don't know if it would count as self-loathing, especially since I made a big deal about Tracey and Quattro trying to distance themselves from Dipper but failing due to their less-than-stellar circumstances. 
> 
> But I do hope that these boys can learn to love and accept themselves and each other, and make the best of their situation.
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are very much appreciated, and more Fics will be coming soon!


End file.
